CHAPTER XXXI

“It is useless to rave and storm,” said
Tregar quietly. “I hold the cards.”

“Was it necessary to humiliate me in the presence
of Miss Westfall?” demanded Ronador bitterly.
With all his sullenness there was in his tone a marked
respect for the older man.

“It was necessary to end this romantic masquerade!”
insisted Tregar. “Why are you here?”

“I—­I came in a flash of panic.
It seemed to me that after all I—­I could
not trust to other hands when the dead thing stirred.”
Ronador’s face was white and haggard.
In that instant his forty-four years lay heavily
upon his shoulders.

Greatly agitated, Ronador fell to pacing to and fro.
Heavy cypress shadows upon the water moved like pointing
fingers.

“Is there nothing I may keep from you?”
broke from him a little bitterly.

“Why,” insisted the older man, “have
you seen fit to conduct yourself with the irrationality
of a madman by trundling a music-machine about the
country and making love to a girl you tried in a moment
of fright and frenzy—­to kill?”

“I—­I lost my head,” said the
Prince with an effort. “It—­it
seemed at first that she must die. The other,
I thought to myself, I will leave to Themar and the
Baron. This I must do for myself. They
will spare her and years hence the thing may stir
again. I—­I can not bear to think
of it even now, Tregar. I have paid heavily for
my moment of madness. For nights after, I did
not sleep. Even now the memory is unspeakable
torture!” And Ronador admitted with stiff, white
lips that some nameless God of Malice had made capital
of his bullet, stirring his heart into admiration
for the fearless girl who had stood so gallantly by
the fire in a storm-haunted wood. In the heart
of the forest a happier solution had come to him and
eliminated the sinister thought of murder.

The Baron coldly heard the passionate avowal through
to the end.

“And the Princess Phaedra?” he begged
formally. “What of her? What of
the marriage that is to dissolve the bitter feud of
a century between Houdania and Galituria, this marriage
to which already you are informally bound?”

“It is nothing to me. I shall marry Miss
Westfall.”

“So!” The Baron matched his heavy fingertips.
“So! And this is another infernal complication
of the freedom of marital choice we grant our princes!”